Recent Events In The Caribbean

Whilst we are keen to promote the Caribbean as a holiday destination it would be irresponsible not to mention the recent storms, the worst for many years, and the current situation. Our best wishes go to those people badly affected by the storms.

Most of "our" islands escaped relatively undamaged. Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba are never seriously affected by storms, they are outside the hurricane belt. St. Lucia and Guadeloupe escaped serious damage as they are south of the badly affected areas. Antigua too, was very fortunate to escape serious damage.

Sadly St. Martin and Dominica were both badly affected. We are still booking holidays to these two islands – for holidays commencing after May 1st. 2018. Please note our other islands are fully operational.

To show our support we will donate £50 for every holiday to St. Martin/Sint Maarten or Dominica booked from now until the end of 2018.

We are monitoring the situation with people in the Caribbean on a daily basis. Many of our accommodation partners on these two islands are still operational, but they have opened their doors to those made homeless and the emergency agencies. Our customers have said they wish to continue with their holiday, as a show of support, which is commendable. But this would be unfair on all concerned. We have re-booked all holidays to Dominica and St. Martin until March 1st. 2018. We will only continue with existing holiday bookings after that date, when we are sure that the hotels, services and infrastructure are fully operational. Although we are keen to show support for these islands, and they will need the revenue visitors bring, we must be sure our clients will get the holiday they want in safe and secure conditions.

In six months – things will be very different

We have had reports that the rain forest on Dominica is already showing signs of recovery. While these are, literally, the first green shoots of recovery, there is no doubt the islands will be "open for business" in 6 months, in many cases, far less. While it may seem incongruous to be promoting islands which have suffered damage, most people book holidays 6 to 12 months ahead. In six months' time, these islands will need to earn the money with which to start rebuilding their lives and their main source of income is tourism. It is important to plan ahead to ensure they do not suffer financial hardship in the coming years - on top of the physical hardships they are enduring now. The natural world recovers at a very rapid rate in the tropics and we all hope the islands are restored to their former natural beauty as soon as possible. We also hope that the peoples' homes are rebuilt and the infrastructure restored very soon.